Saeed Masouri, Iranian political prisoner serving a life sentence, has written a letter titled “Oh Lovers, Oh Lovers, Today We and You Are Here.”
The letter is written from Qezel Hesar Prison in Karaj to commemorate the beginning of his twenty-fourth year of uninterrupted imprisonment, and it reflects on the painful experiences in the prisons of the Iranian regime.
In the letter, Saeed Masouri emphasizes, “They cannot scare us with this sea of blood.”
He writes that for twenty-four years, he has endured the weight of the oppressive walls and bars like the child of Mary carrying his cross, and he has lived moment by moment in the terrifying atmosphere of the prison.
Describing his twenty-third year of imprisonment, which coincided with the uprising of the Iranian people and the suppression of the protesting masses by the regime, Masouri refers to it as a “bloody” and “bloodiest” year of his imprisonment. Commemorating political prisoners executed by the regime, he writes, “I still feel the warmth of breath and the yearning of beloved ones like political prisoners Mohsen Shekari, Mohammad Mehdi Karami, Mohammad Hosseini, Milad Zohraevand, or Ghasem Abesteh, Ayoub Karimi, and Davoud Abdollahi (Aso) on my cheeks, who were slaughtered in this very slaughterhouse of Ghezel Hesar.”
Masouri also mentions the names of Khosrow Basharat, Anwar Khodaverdi, Farhad Salimi, Kamran Sheikh, Mojahed Kourkour, Reza Rasai, and several other political and prisoners of conscience who are in danger of execution.
He points to regime’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, as the orchestrator of recent crimes in Iran and writes, “The blood of our martyrs has not yet satisfied his thirst for blood, and the god of crime and slaughter, not the merciful God, continues to issue orders for these crimes.”
The longest-standing political prisoner in Iran describes the prison as the “cemetery of human beings and humanity” and writes about the transfer of prisoners from public wards for the implementation of death sentences and the aftermath in the cells. He says, “When the slaughter and execution agents take one person from beside you every day for execution, with handcuffs and chains, and their last gaze is locked onto you, and there’s nothing you can do, every moment you become the hanged and executed one after him. I have been executed with them every moment throughout this whole year.”
Masouri then asks his audience, “How long and how far does this situation continue?” and he answers, “Certainly, until we reclaim, drop by drop, the freedoms taken from our people, and this, of course, is a very bloody price that we pay every moment, and we are supposed to pay even more than that. Perhaps this is the fate of lovers of freedom and Iran.”
In conclusion, this political prisoner expresses hope that “swimming in this sea of blood” will eventually lead to the “shore of freedom, justice, and equality.”
Saeed Masouri, born in 1965 in Khorramabad, Lorestan, is one of the longest-standing political prisoners in Iran.
On January 8, 2001, he was arrested by Ministry of Intelligence agents in Dezful on charges of “membership in the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran.” After 14 months of detention in a solitary cell at Ahvaz Intelligence Office, he was transferred to Ward 209 of Evin Prison.
In 2002, this political prisoner was sentenced to death on charges of “waging war,” but later his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Since his arrest, Masouri has spent his years of imprisonment without a single day of furlough in Ahvaz Intelligence Detention Center, Evin Prison, Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj, and currently in Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj.
